| Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, Second Edition |  | Author: Michael Dawson
Publisher: Course Technology PTR
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $18.00
as of 9/8/2010 03:56 MST details
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New (38) Used (24) from $16.76
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  65 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1598633600
Dewey Decimal Number: 794.81526
EAN: 9781598633603
ASIN: 1598633600
Publication Date: December 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| • | ISBN13: 9781598633603 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
What is it that sets games apart from other forms of entertainment, keeping players coming back for more? Interactivity. The ability to control the outcome. Programming is an integral part of that interactivity, and C++ is a vital skill in programming for games. Beginning C++ through Game Programming, Second Edition will provide you with the core skills you need to begin programming with C++ specifically as it relates to games. You'll reinforce each new skill by creating small games along the way, and you'll put these skills to the test with one ambitious game project at the end. By the time you finish, you'll have a solid foundation in the programming language of the professionals!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 65
 Total ripoff for a Kindle book June 7, 2010
Kristin L. Hanson
I bought the Kindle version of this book, so there is no companion CD-ROM. When you go to the website recommended for download of files for the CD-ROM, you are immediately redirected to a site that will sell you the CD-ROM (a company called Delmar Cengage Learning). Lucky me, I can pay $29.99 for the online companion, and I can't get the files, source code for the programs or games, will have to go elsewhere for the Bloodshed Dev-C++ (easy enough), and won't get the "useful links." I don't give a dang at this point if this is a good book or not, I feel completely ripped by the fact that I can pay nearly double for the "companion" information than I paid for the Kindle book. Total ripoff.
 Not bad as an introduction to C++ May 4, 2010
Richard Carpenter (Fishers, IN USA)
This book does a fairly decent job of introducing new programmers to various C++ topics such as data types, flow control, functions and object-oriented development. It was pretty easy to absorb (with the obligatory struggle on pointers, of course), and I feel it gave me a pretty good start to learning more about C++.
On the other hand there were a few places in the book where the flow seemed to be just right, when all of a sudden a concept would be introduced that kind of seemed out of place or plugged in after the book was finished, as it was not nearly as well presented or explained as the reader had grown accustomed to seeing in the rest of the book. It would usually be only a brief departure, but each time it left me scratching my head and flipping back through several previous pages, wondering what I had missed. One example is the discussion regarding memory usage and the heap. I saw the disclaimer (paraphrasing) "This example is shown as an abstract diagram, because we are talking about an object, rather than a string literal." Used several times throughout that chapter, without ever being provided any explanation on why that point is even significant.
While the example code was straightforward enough and did serve to demonstrate the author's points, it often lacked enough context to provide a thorough understanding of the topic. For example, seeing the way pointers and references behave differently is good information, but no clue is given as to why or how you would determine which you need in a given situation.
All in all I found the book useful, but I'm certain there are better options out there.
 Excellent learning material February 24, 2010
Jeremy Raven
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a great choice for me to purchase this book and I have to thank all the positive reviews on Amazon for it. Some people were apparently confused by the title on the first edition and so it was altered on the second. This book is for people who want to learn C++ as opposed to people wanting to learn game programming. This is the perfect choice for absolute beginners. The author explains things really well and assumes you know very little about programming. His writing style is concise yet light and quite methodical, starting off with basic programming structures and building his way up to classes. This book alone will not teach you everything you need to know but it surely was an excellent introduction for me into the world of C++ and the fact it used game creation as a vehicle, this made it even more interesting for me.
GREAT February 21, 2010
Barbara B. Bolen (Farmingdale, N.Y. United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Great book it is written simplistically but not too simplistically he writes like he would teach it in a class and unlike some reviewers it was not written for computer illiterate just a person with no programming experience, for the people who are looking to get this book IT DOES NOT USE GRAPHICS there is no animation because with out something to supplement C ++ it has no graphics function it need direct x or something along those lines i personally recommend this book to anyone looking to learn c ++ but if you want to go more in depth and make a graphical game then get a follow up ook that will build on this one.
Truly a beginner's book: January 7, 2010
John Knepper
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've been programming in perl for years, but I was ready to move on to bigger and better things. Wanting to learn C++, I was in search of a 'good' programming book, whether it go to an intermediate level or just the basic fundamentals, that a person looking into learning C++ would want. What more could stick out than a programming book that not only teaches you the C++ language, but the basic tenants of game programming? Here's the 'deal'. As a person with a lot of prior programming experience, I can say this book is huge when it comes to teaching you the basic fundamentals, and I mean for you to take the word basic to its very most possible meaning. This book is a bit more on the 'technical' side, and should probably be for a person who is fairly new to programming, can't stand scanning through long code excerpts, or wants to connect the dots; if they had thrown themselves into the realm of programming in the past without taking the time to acquaint themselves with the foundations.
The first eight chapters are almost beautiful. I really enjoyed going through those simple things that you haven't seen since your first introductory programming class in college. When you get to chapters nine and ten, the book gets a little rough. It does a good job of explaining the topics of chapter nine, like dynamic memory allocation, memory leaks, etc, but it's not as thorough, so I could see that a 'true' beginner could possibly get lost. The chapter 'does' explain everything, but you have to be more careful and pay much closer attention to the words you're reading or you might be left asking 'why' in the heck some things are the way they are.
One thing this book lacks is a good, solid introduction to the C++ language. It could get a bit more into the technical details of really learning the fundamentals to ensuring a 'nice' C++ programming environment other than tossing you at Dev-C++. In the past, I used the Eclipse IDE a lot with Java. I tried to use that for this book, at first, but found it rather difficult to set up, so I gave up and used the default IDE the book recommends; Dev-C++. I had code completion turned on, and I can say the code completion is rather sad in comparison with Eclipse. There are definitely some 'fine' details this IDE could work out to become just a bit more user friendly.
The book doesn't give you a good conclusion. I enjoy a technical book that points the reader to more resources or a 'direction' to go in. This book drops off a cliff at chapter ten and leaves you wondering where to go next? It'd be nice to get some perspective, honest perspective, and be 'informed' of a good book to pick up afterwards. I'm sure leaving the conclusion out of the book was the intent of the author and publisher, but it's always a nice thing to have.
I do recommend this book to a beginner as well as anyone that might have unfairly been thrown into a 'lower' level, low and high in C++'s regard, language like Java or C++ and wants to smooth out the wrinkles they might have with some of the basic fundamentals; myself included in some instances. If you wanted, you could probably run front to back in a day or two, but you won't learn anything that way, especially since the book slowly increases the learning curve as the chapters go on; very slowly. Nonetheless, I recommend you type out the examples by hand, instead of downloading them from disc, and try some of the exercises if time can't afford you to do all of them. If you do that, you'll surely be 'ahead' of those who might have breezed on through when it comes to the sponge factor. Spending extra time on chapters nine and ten would also do you a lot of good(!). Oh, yeah, and the book does a good job of bringing you into the wonderful realm of Object Oriented programming (OOP), but you might have to go 'research' some things like operator overloading, which will probably leave you a little dazed. Underline and italicize that last statement. For a person with a lot of perl experience, this book actually made me appreciate perl so much more, and increase my desire to really pick up a lot more C++ as well.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 65
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